How do federal regulations affect consumer prices? An analysis of the regressive effects of regulation

This study is the first to measure the impact of federal regulations on consumer prices. By combining consumer expenditure and pricing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, industry supply-chain data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and industry-specific regulation information from the Mercatus Center’s RegData database, we determine that regulations promote higher consumer prices, and that these price increases have a disproportionately negative effect on low-income households. Specifically, we find that the poorest households spend larger proportions of their incomes on heavily regulated goods and services prone to sharp price increases. While the literature explores other specific costs of regulation, noting that higher consumer prices are a probable consequence of heavy regulation, this study is the first to provide a thorough empirical analysis of that relationship across industries. Irrespective of the reasons for imposing new regulations, these results demonstrate that in the aggregate, the negative consequences are significant, especially for the most vulnerable households.

     

Small state soft power strategies: virtual enlargement in the cases of the Vatican City State and Singapore

The concept of soft power, or symbolic power, offers unexplored potential for analysing small state power. This article argues that it is a means of virtual enlargement of small states' foreign policy reach and presence. If one examines the bases of soft power, it becomes evident that small states can utilize their political economy potential, models of good governance and diplomatic mediation as forms of power that defy their territorial limitations. Case studies of the Vatican City State and Singapore illustrate ‘small state soft power’.     

Negotiating the EU–U.S. Open Aviation Area Agreement 2007 in the Context of Transatlantic Airline Regimes Since 1944

Between 1944 and 2002, the United States sought to create a competitive and commercially driven international civil aviation regime. It tried to peel away politically inspired regulations, which fragmented the marketplace, and deliver efficiencies and consumer benefits. In contrast with the American liberal tradition—albeit with limitations—the industry in Europe was over-regulated and largely based on subsidised state-owned carriers with international market quotas. Thus for many years Europe and the U.S. followed different paths; but political and economic dynamics conspired together in the 1980s and early 1990s to produce remarkable change in the European Community and, by 1997, there were the makings of a competitive and lightly regulated single market, which brought it close to U.S. practice. Since 2002, the United States has been less liberal in its airline policies; the EU has been more liberal. It would be an irony indeed if the great regime liberaliser since 1944 were now to become a force of regulatory conservatism that denied consummation to the vision of a transatlantic open aviation area that could be a magnet to draw in the rest of the world into a truly global commercial airline market.